


Forgotten Pastimes

by miikasaa



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1523297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miikasaa/pseuds/miikasaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako accidentally calls Korra a word he’d heard several times while growing up on the streets. Instead of getting angry like he predicted, she’s curious and wants to learn more words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten Pastimes

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a piece posted on my tumblr for bethepeaf, but I decided to post it here as well. Enjoy!

“Can you pass me the bowl next to the fridge, Sheba?”

“Sheba?”

Mako froze, his eyes wide as he stopped chopping the vegetables littering the counter. He looked back over his shoulder to see Korra leaning against the counter, arms crossed, with an amused expression on her face. She made no move for the bowl he’d asked for.

“Spirits, I’m sorry Korra. I-I don’t know why…”

“What’s a ‘Sheba’?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow.

He sighed and ran a hand down his face before answering, “It’s something I used to hear when Bo and I lived on the streets. The Triad, especially, used to use it all the time. I don’t know why it just came back to me. I’m sorry.”

Korra pursed her lips but didn’t say anything right away. She moved from her spot against the counter to grab the bowl of Sea Prunes and set them on the stove next to her boyfriend.

“Okay, but what does it mean?”

“I-I’d rather not say.”

“Is it something bad?”

“Not exactly,” he answered, turning back to face the food he was preparing.

She leaned over his shoulder as he worked, her stray hairs tickled his arm, and her breath was warm against his skin as she effectively distracted him. “Then why won’t you tell me what it means?”

Mako sighed again; placing the knife he was using down and closing his eyes. “It’s slang for a woman with sex appeal.” He opened his eyes and looked over at her. “Happy?”

He expected her to be angry, call him out for being a jerkbender, and maybe throw something at him, but instead she just looked confused. She mulled over his words for a few more minutes, making Mako fidget in the silence. He was about to beg her to say something, anything to calm his nerves, but when she finally spoke it wasn’t what he expected.

“What’s slang?”

“It’s like an informal language,” he answered after a quick moment to figure out exactly how to describe it to her.

He’d grown up with slang. The Triad’s seemed to speak with a language all their own, and while dealing with all of the different members, Mako and Bolin picked up quite a few new words.

Knowing the talk of the underbelly of the city had helped the brothers during their days with the Triple Threats, but Mako had made a point of eliminating those words once they’d started Probending and gotten a real home.

Sometimes, though, they slipped and a word or two of their past resurfaced.

Korra laughed, forcing Mako from his past and nearly making him jump in surprise. “Did you learn this stuff from the Triad?” she asked between fits.

“Yes.” She calmed down after a few more minutes of giggling, and what she said next surprised him more than anything, “What else do you know?”

“You’re not mad? I just called you a slang word for sex appeal!”

“Mako, please, I already know I have sex appeal.” She ignored his spluttering and continued easily, “I’ve never heard this stuff before and I’m curious.” Her lips formed into her signature pout and her eyes widened, and Mako could feel his resolve crumbling fast.

“Fine.” He thought about the words he knows that he’d locked up in the recesses of his mind, put away in order to focus on his life- a life that didn’t involve conversing with mobsters. “Something that’s attractive is Keen.” He began slowly, watching his girlfriend’s face for her reactions.

“A man with sex appeal is a Sheik. A dancer is a Hoofer, Stuck-on is having a crush on someone, and Pinch is to arrest.” He frowned.

“Is that it?” She asked when he made no move to continue.

“No, no there’s more. But Korra, these aren’t the kinds of words you hear everyday in the city. I didn’t like using them when working for the Triad, and I don’t know if I should be telling them to you.”

She rolled her eyes, placing her hands on hips. “Come on Mako, do you think I’m going to walk out of your apartment and shout these words as I run down the street?” Her eyes softened before she continued, “I just want to know a little more about who you are.”

Sometimes he hated the affect her eyes had on him.

“Is there a word for perfect?”

“Hotsy-totsy,” he answered immediately. It was a word he and Bo had laughed about for hours while running numbers across the city. He smiled softly when Korra’s lips broke into a huge grin, clearly finding as much amusement in the term as he once had.

She took a step closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and giving him a quick kiss. “I think you’re hotsy-totsy, cool guy.”

“And I think you’re copacetic,” he replied, placing a lingering kiss on her forehead. “Or, wonderful.

Korra let go of him and allowed him to turn back to the meal he’d been preparing, still asked if there was slang for the specific words that popped into her head, laughing merrily if she found them amusing. But when he accidentally cut his finger with the knife he refused to define the word he’d instinctively shouted, no matter how much she begged him.


End file.
